The present invention relates to improvements in dialyzers, and particularly single-unit dialyzers that can be used with all existing dialysis equipment to provide dialytic therapies having increased efficiency.
This invention particularly relates to improvements in dialyzers of the type disclosed in U.S. Patent Pub. 2011-0120930 A1, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference and portions of which are reproduced herein.
The dialyzer disclosed therein is composed of two bundles of hollow fibers constituted by semi-permeable membranes, preferably housed within a single casing that delimits, in effect, two chambers. The dialyzer further includes an intermediate chamber in which blood flows from one fiber bundle to the other so that the blood coming from the first fiber bundle becomes intermixed and thus homogenized. This dialyzer is arranged to be connected to a standard dialysis machine via a blood inlet and outlet and a dialysate inlet and outlet. Dialysate flows between the chambers via a flow restricting passage that produces a dialysate pressure drop between the chambers delimited in the casing.